Federal Court Further Erodes Fourth Amendment

In piecemeal fashion, our natural rights are being eliminated by the state

Piece by piece, the government is dismantling the Bill of Rights. The latest blow came this week when a federal district court in Virginia ruled that a defendant has no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in regard to his or her personal computer, the modern equivalent of papers and effects.

The ruling stems from the FBI investigation of Playpen, a hidden services site hosting child pornography. Playpen was seized by the government in 2014 and used to distribute malware to people visiting the site. The malware collected information from personal computers and sent it to the government to be used in prosecutions.

According to an amicus brief filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the government failed to use “scrupulous exactitude” required by the Constitution when it obtained a single warrant and used it…